FISHER’S FIRST STEPS: HOW A SHORT-CIRCUIT CHAMPION MADE THE SWITCH TO TT LEGEND
For most Grand Prix racers, leaving the championship circus in their mid-30s is the sign of a career winding down and weekends spent on golf courses rather than race circuits.
For Rob Fisher, though, it was the opening of a door that would lead him to greatness around the iconic Isle of Man TT Mountain Course.
After early days dabbling as a passenger at National level in sidecarcross, the Cumbrian decided he preferred being in the driving seat, and with the switch in seat came a switch of surface as he moved to the tarmac and short circuit racing. The early 1990s brought success to Fisher, with a run of three consecutive national titles between 1990 and 1992.
Alongside the British Championship, Fisher also contested the European and World Championships in 1991 and 1992, respectively, before the age old enemy of any motorsport reared its head, and budget restraints left him considering retirement. That was until a conversation with 1992’s double TT winner, Geoff Bell.
“I’d done GP’s in 1992 and the European Championship in 1991, and prior to that I’d been British Champion, but at the end of 1992 I just realised there was no way I was going to raise the budget to carry on doing that,” explains Fisher. “To be fair, I was nearly ready for retirement because I couldn’t see anything else. I hadn’t really given the TT much thought, but I was good friends with Geoff Bell and Eddy Wright, and they persuaded me to give the TT a look.”
With a move onto the roads confirmed in 1993, Fisher linked up with Vince Butler and the pair secured a solid fifth place and maiden 100mph lap in the opening three-lap encounter, before registering a DNF in race two. Despite failing to finish, the performance in race one was enough to grant the pair the Newcomers Award, laying the groundwork for a bright TT future.
Fisher and Butler in their TT debut in 1993, securing fifth place and the Newcomers Award in their first race around the Mountain Course
“It certainly grabs your attention,” exclaimed Fisher, when asked what it’s like switching from short-circuit racing to the 37.73 miles of the TT Mountain Course. “To be honest, the biggest thing in my eyes was that I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. I didn’t want to crash, I just wanted to get round, get the experience and see if it really was the thing I wanted to pursue. Feelings wise? Blimey I’ve never been so nervous in my life, I don’t think. But I was really looking forward to it. Looking down towards St Ninian’s is just amazing. To think when you’re sitting on a bike that any second now you were off down there at god knows what speed, it was just fantastic, it really was.”
The switch from short circuits to roads, particularly as relatively late in a career as it was for Fisher, can often be a jarring experience. The first major recalibration comes from experience of racing at purpose-built circuits with racers’ every need in mind to a closed road that usually sees everyday traffic going about its business.
“I was lucky to have Eddy Wright and Geoff Bell on my side,” says Fisher. “They gave me a bit of guidance on how to go about things. As for the actual riding of the road itself, to me I found it fairly easy to learn. It felt like it was a bit of Cumbria. The roads and everything just looks like the part of Cumbria that I live in. I’d been used to riding those types of roads on my road bike so it was quite easy to make the transition that way.”
Fisher and Long in action in 2002, the final TT meeting of Fisher’s distinguished racing career.
It’s not just the roads at the TT that make it a unique challenge, with the psychological battle of setting off one at a time alien to many on their first visit. Most racers have it bred into them from the start of their career that you set off at the same time as everyone else, battling wheel-to-wheel and knowing that the first to see the chequered flag will get the garland when they return to the paddock. At the TT, you’re on your own, sometimes not seeing another bike for an entire lap and then when you do find yourself sharing the same piece of tarmac, you’re at least 10 seconds apart on the timing screens already.
“I felt [riding on your own] was good because I could go at my own pace,” continues Fisher. “I could do my own thing and learn it as I went along. There wasn’t anybody pushing me around or anything like that.
“I always had four pit boards around the circuit. One at the start/finish, one at the Hawthorn, one at Ballaugh and one at the Bungalow. At the end of the day there’s no need to push yourself, especially if you’re in the lead. You could make a mistake if you push yourself too hard. I never noticeably slowed down and rolled the throttle. You’re calmer in your mind, maybe don’t push as hard going into corners, but staying flat out everywhere else, it’s cyclic.
“I think the 2002 TT, which was my last meeting, was the closest that Dave [Molyneux] and myself raced on the road together. We were actually racing on the road itself, swapping paint and what not. I wanted to be past him and away so I had a clear road in front of me, and I’d been behind him in the past where he’d filled my radiator full of leaves and I’d broken down because of it. But on the other hand, when I got past Dave, his instinct is then to try and mess me up as best he can, make me make a mistake so that he can break clear again. You’re back to your short-circuit racing then, with the usual pressures.”
Fisher and Wynn on their way to a pair of victories at the 1994 TT, just a year after Fisher made his debut.
The help and assistance Fisher received from Bell and Wright was clearly useful, and following a winter spent on the island learning as much as he could about the course, he returned to the TT in 1994 quietly confident. That confidence paid off, as he rode to a pair of dominant victories that year with Michael Wynn in the passenger’s chair. The performance was backed up in 1995 alongside Boyd Hutchinson, despite the pair suffering a heavy accident at May Hill in practice, just days before the first race was scheduled.
After coming second to a dominant Dave Molyneux in 1996, Fisher linked up with Rick Long to form one of the most formidable sidecar pairings in TT history from 1997 onwards. The two secured six TT wins, including two double victories in 2000 and 2002, and would also share an outfit in Fisher’s 2003 Sidecar World Championship campaign.
Fisher and Long celebrate one of their two TT victories in 2000, part of a partnership that would deliver six wins around the Mountain Course.
This year, almost 25 years after closing the curtains on his TT career, Fisher returned to the Mountain Course with Hutchinson to take part in the 1996 Rewind parade lap at the Classic TT.
“It was just fantastic,” he enthused. “It was a privilege to be invited and to be able to do something like that, and to ride around without the pressure. Seeing the fans waving their programmes like they used to when you were on the last lap and in the lead was amazing. That feeling is so special and it’ll never go away. It was just fantastic.”
